Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Hope Not Hate

Things are hotting up for the European Elections and the Local Elections (both 18.5.09).Interesting to see the different styles in Party Political Broadcasts, on the most part they are absolutely dire, it's hard to image how somebody might organise a whole country if they can't even manage to rustle up a three minute video telling you what they think.

By far the best visually and content wise (it actually gave a hint to policies!) was the green party video.Green Party Video. (bbc iplayer)

The conservatives managed to avoid all mention of their policy's and just banged on about MP's expenses.

Labour just banged on about the Conservatives.

Lib Dems, talked about a few of their policies, the politics of which were far more convincing than the studio audience asking the questions.

The worst (although closely followed by one-trick-pony UKIP) was the BNP.BNP Video. (bbc iplayer).

They boast there achievements so far as having installed two CCTV cameras in the Midlands, but also claim they have a policy of "no big-brother rubbish". They also promise "No tax money being spent on PC minority projects", god only knows what they mean by this, but you can imagine it's not good news for a whole array of community projects that do far more for society than two cameras. On top of this, the fact they are Nazi scum bags who attempt to aggravate and tear apart our community means they won't be getting my vote.

I watched all these the same day as this Hope not Hate leaflet came through our door. It's produced by anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. Seems like a really good campaign getting all sorts of people, celebrities etc, to denounce the BNP. I especially like the way it doesn't assume to tell you who to vote for, instead it just encourages involvment in the voting process for anybody other than the BNP.

Me and Kyle were talking about it over some Linda Macartney Pies, and came up with a couple of fun ideas for how the leaflet could be expanded into a poster and billboard campaign. Thought I'd have a quick go at mocking these up today, if I get time I might try and print some of these out and stick them up wherever the BNP get the highest votes from in Leeds.

I think this second one could be worked on a bit more to make it look more like it was bursting out of the side of the billboard. Right, I'm off to cook some British food (beans on toast) for British people (myself)!Merlin x